I'm not really qualified to do a post for the final episode of one of the most examined TV programs of all time. There are people who have made a career out of figuring it out. There are Lost geeks, Lost maniacs and mathematicians who use it to write formulas. There are clubs, groups, and 3,892,302 fans on Facebook. Here I sit at 8:23pm Pacific watching "Lost" on Demand because I was too exhausted from worrying about a very sick pet to stay up for the live event on ABC last night. I'm not ashamed of that, but I do feel really, really bad that I've been AWOL from watching the series entirely for the past two seasons because I was so busy and had a new job and....ah heck there's no excuse, I just didn't see it. And now that I'm watching the miraculous series finale, I know I'm going to have a great summer catching up with all the episodes I missed.
It makes no sense for me to do an actual recap, since I'm going to get it all wrong anyway. Basically there are a bunch of people who crash land on a mysterious island that looks a lot like Hawaii. They've been there about 6 years. Some of them get married, some of them have kids. There's a yellow dog and a Volkswagen bus. There's a button that has to be pressed or the world will blow up, and a monster made out of smoke. A mysterious hatch, mind control and and the Dharma initiative are all very important. Don't blink about halfway through the second season. Sawyer looks awesome in a torn wet t-shirt. When the music plays you want to cry; doesn't matter if it's the first season or the grand finale. Everybody who you thought was dead isn't dead. But everybody dies. All characters are both on and off the island at the same time. Some are good, some are evil. The good forgive the bad. The island was a way station, a post crash purgatory.... I figured as much when I saw the beautiful interfaith stained glass window in the chapel right before the end.
For an incredibly complex series, Lost's final episode framed the most basic truth of human experience. Love one another. Help one another. We're on this flight together until it ends. A lofty message for any television show, but one that Lost pulled off with unprecedented originality. It will be missed.
The series finale still left me confused and intrigued just like it used to do from week to week. Some were disappointed with the the ending I was not. But I also like the way the Soprano's ended too. Maybe I just don't want everything answered and Lost left many things unanswered just like it always did. It was an engaging series and I'm sorry to see it go.
ReplyDeleteConfused and intrigued sounds like a perfect way to view a TV series, and when you come to think of it, a perfect way to go through life! I don't know what else people would have wanted -- at least this way there is so much to speculate, and I don't think wraps it up so tight that you want to put the show away and never watch again. Makes the past shows even more meaningful. I have to catch up on a lot of stuff, and knowing what happened in the finale doesn't ruin that...I hope! :-)
ReplyDeleteI like to think of how lucky the actors were to film on location in Hawaii for 6 years! For some of them, I imagine those tears at the end were very real! Boy I sure hope the Sawyer dude ends up on the big screen. Liked him a lot.
ReplyDeleteYes, I'm for Sawyer -- Josh Holloway -- not fading away and becoming a one-show wonder!
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